Chapter 6 - A Husband's Version of the Truth.
Graham ended the remote session three seconds before Skyley traced the exact device.
The archived ledgers survived, but the ASH PROTOCOL folder locked itself behind military-grade encryption.
Skyley called her uncle.
He answered on the first ring with practiced concern.
"I heard Ethan forced you from the house."
"What are you doing in my kitchen?"
Silence stretched between them.
"I came to calm him down."
"You tried to erase my mother's archive."
Graham sighed as if she were a difficult child.
"Your injury has made patterns appear where none exist."
It was Ethan's favorite cruelty spoken in an older voice.
Skyley looked at Nora and understood that the two men had rehearsed more than business strategy together.
"Step away from my computer."
"The board meets tomorrow, Skyley."
Graham's tone lost its warmth.
"If you arrive in this condition, I will be forced to protect the company from you."
He disconnected.
Within an hour, Ethan released a video from the white kitchen.
He stood beside Vanessa in front of the open patio doors and described himself as the devoted husband of a traumatized woman.
The camera framed the red mark on his cheek while hiding the bruises his fingers had left on Skyley's shoulders.
"I love my wife, but I fear for everyone's safety," he told thousands of viewers.
Vanessa did not speak.
She stared beyond the camera with both hands clenched around the belt of Skyley's robe.
Comments spread faster than corrections.
Strangers called Skyley unstable, jealous, and dangerous.
Several demanded that Hale Hearth remove her as chief executive.
Former employees posted stories about Skyley's supposed temper within minutes of one another.
Nora checked their language and found the same misspelled phrase in seven separate accounts.
The outrage was being purchased by a crisis firm paid through Phoenix Restoration.
Ethan was not merely lying to the public.
He had bought the public's first reaction in advance.
Graham announced an emergency board vote for midnight the next day.
He suspended her building access before the announcement finished circulating.
Nora threw her phone onto the table.
"They planned the public story before you served the notice."
"They planned it before the fire."
Skyley opened the black card ledger again.
Dr. Vale's first payment had been made six days before the kitchen burned.
The false psychiatric history was not a response to her injury.
It was part of the reason she had been injured.
Officer Ortiz returned with more bad news.
The motorcycle had been found burning beneath an overpass.
No rider was nearby, but the stolen fire report lay in the flames.
Someone was destroying the same evidence twice.
Ortiz sent the glove image to a federal database and learned that Phoenix Restoration had purchased identical uniforms for twelve temporary contractors.
All twelve employee names were false.
The company's tax identification number led to a law office controlled by Graham's personal accountant.
The accountant had disappeared the week Skyley returned to work after her final surgery.
Skyley copied every surviving file to three encrypted drives.
She mailed one to a federal fraud investigator her mother had once trusted.
She gave another to Ortiz and placed the third inside the cottage safe.
At 4:17 p.m., her phone rang from Vanessa's number.
Skyley answered without speaking.
Breathing trembled on the other end.
"Ethan went upstairs, and your uncle is outside," Vanessa whispered.
"Leave through the pantry door."
"I cannot leave until I tell you what happened."
Skyley gripped the phone.
"What happened when?"
Vanessa's next words turned the scar on Skyley's face cold.
"The night your kitchen burned, I was inside the house."
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ONE HOUR TO VACATE | DOMESTIC SUSPENSE
